


Shark Grin

by JacarandaBanyan



Category: Naruto
Genre: Akatsuki Gift Exchange 2019, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, College AU, Established Relationship, Kisame in a Mermaid Tail, M/M, Scuba Diving, Sharks, They're Dumb College Kids Pulling Stupid Stunts, free diving
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-01
Updated: 2020-01-01
Packaged: 2021-02-27 06:53:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,139
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22062850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JacarandaBanyan/pseuds/JacarandaBanyan
Summary: Kisame goes swimming with sharks while the rest of the Akatsuki film him. It could have gone worse.
Relationships: Hoshigaki Kisame/Uchiha Itachi
Comments: 8
Kudos: 133
Collections: Akatsuki Gift Exchange





	Shark Grin

**Author's Note:**

> For the Akatsuki Christmas Exchange. My giftee was Konohagakureship! I hope you enjoy it!

“We need to have this month’s extracurricular get together at Fossil Beach,” Itachi said to Kakuzu before he’d even sat down. 

Kakuzu glared at him suspiciously. Itachi was unruffled;  _ glare  _ was his friend’s default expression. 

“And why, exactly, are we going to waste five bucks worth of gas doing that?”

“Because Kisame had a great idea for how we can make a little extra grocery money. And we won’t be wasting gas because I managed to reserve a college van this morning. One of the twelve-person ones that can fit everyone.”

Kakuzu raised his eyebrows, and Itachi forced his smile down. He’d had Kakuzu at ‘money.’

“You got a college van? How’d you manage that?”

“I’ll combine this trip with an afternoon’s worth of field study. Collecting data for my research project is a valid use of school resources. And I said Kisame was coming with me, and that he was going to be free diving near the reef to scout out some spots for his summer research. The marine biology department guy signed off on everything so fast, I'd be shocked if he actually read the form. ”

Kakuzu took a few seconds to digest that. Itachi sat back and watched silently as the gears in his head slowly turned. Kakuzu never appreciated being hurried when making a decision, and in return he rarely made Itachi wait overlong for him to mull something over. 

“What’s this fabulous idea of Kisame’s, then? You’re not just saying it’s a good idea because he’s your boyfriend, are you?”

“He’s going to swim with sharks, and we’re going to upload videos of him doing it to YouTube and give them the most clickbait-y titles Deidara can come up with, then monetize them.”

Kakuzu hummed thoughtfully.

“Okay. It you can get Konan and Yahiko onboard, we can go.”

“Thank you. I have class with Konan later this morning, in Technical Writing, and I’ll see Sasori and Zetsu in lab. If you run into Yahiko before dinner, would you ask him?”

“Fine.”

The professor cleared her throat, and the two of them shifted to face forward as Microeconomics 200 began. Itachi could afford to let his attention slip- it wasn’t his major, after all- but his friend wouldn’t appreciate any further chatting until class was over. 

Under the table, he quickly sent a text to Kisame.

_ Kakuzu’s on board. One down, seven to go. _

* * *

“If Kisame was going to swim with sharks for this week’s get-together, would you be interested?”

Hidan looked up from the Religious Studies text he’d been mangling with red sharpie. 

“Sharks, like the ones that bite swimmers in half on TV?”

Itachi internally rolled his eyes. 

“Yes, those sharks, except these ones are real.”

“I’m down. If someone gets half-eaten by a shark, I’ll sacrifice the other half to Jashin.”

* * *

“Hey Yahiko, you know how people are always maligning sharks, even though they rarely attack people and are killed in overwhelming numbers by irresponsible humans?”

“Yes?”

“Well, Kisame had a great idea for raising awareness about how different real sharks are from movie monsters that we can do during our next monthly get together.”

“Sounds good to me. Better than another art museum, at least. I don’t really want to spend Saturday getting kicked out of yet another one because Sasori and Deidara couldn’t stop yelling at each other.”

“They’ll have to work a lot harder to argue underwater.”

“Perfect. I’ll talk with Nagato about getting any sort of equipment we might need.”

“If he could get scuba gear and some camera equipment, that would be great. Kisame’s already rented one of those bigger Boston whalers for us, but neither of us has anything better than a cell phone to shoot with.”

“Text me the details- I’ve gotta get to class.”

“Of course.”

* * *

Konan agreed easily, and Zetsu said yes so long as he could tag along with Itachi afterwards to take some comparative soil samples for his own projects. Sasori didn’t seem to care much one way or another, but said that he would ‘talk with Deidara.’ It had taken less than a week for Itachi to learn that ‘talk to Deidara’ was code for ‘get into a screaming match that brings the RA down on the whole floor.’ Had he not known they’d requested each other as roommates four semesters running, he’d almost have thought they legitimately couldn’t stand each other. 

Itachi decided to count them both as  _ yes _ votes. Counting himself, that brought them to a consensus. 

* * *

“Hey, Kisame, my man!” Deidara called out as they approached the van on Saturday morning. “I found something for you, yeah!”

He held up a package and waved it. There was some sort of multicolored fabric inside, but it was all folded up, so Itachi couldn’t see what it was.

Deidara tossed it to Kisame, who caught it and turned it right-side-up, where a cardboard insert declared that it was a deluxe, collector-ready water-ready wearable mermaid tail.  _ Experience your own mermaid magic for just $99.99! _

“It was in the dumpster behind the apartment. Hidan and I saved it before the garbage trucks came this morning.”

Itachi narrowed his eyes suspiciously. 

“Who in our apartment would buy this and then throw it out? This thing cost a hundred dollars.”

Deidara waved away Itachi’s questions impatiently. 

“I don’t know, could have been anyone. Nancy Freedman, maybe.”

“Nancy can’t swim,” Itachi said slowly. His suspicions began to solidify. “The old man next door doesn’t either, and the couple down the hall wouldn’t even let their kids in that kiddie pool last summer. Jeremy never leaves his apartment. I’m pretty sure the only person in the building who can swim besides us is Maya, and this is way too big for her.”

Deidara rolled his eyes almost but not quite casually enough to come off as genuine. 

“Come on, Itachi, quit being such a Debbie Downer. How am I supposed to know whose it is? It doesn’t matter, anyhow. It was in the trash, so whoever it was clearly didn’t want it anymore.”

Itachi gave the package another dubious once-over. It certainly didn’t  _ look  _ like it had been languishing in a dumpster until jus this morning. The packaging was pristine, without so much as a wrinkle in the plastic, and it clearly hadn’t been opened. The price tag was still in place. 

“Can we get a move on, or are we going to sit here all day playing guess whose?” Sasori complained. “If we have to wake up before noon on a Saturday, I don’t want to waste time standing around in the parking lot.”

“Sure thing, Sasori my man!” Deidara said, and jogged around to the other side of the van, effectively escaping Itachi’s questions. 

* * *

Once they had all piled into the van, Itachi pulled out of the parking lot and turned on the radio. 

The traffic on the highway was light; the sky was grey and clouded over, so the beach was unlikely to be a popular destination. All the better- what Kisame had in mind would be a delicate operation, and random beachgoers sticking their nose in things could do nothing but cause problems. When he looked in the rearview mirror, he could see Nagato asleep and drooling on Yahiko’s shoulder in the back of the van, while Konan idly doodled a mustache on his face with a sharpie. In the middle two rows of seats, Kakuzu played referee for Hidan and Deidara, if only because he was stuck between them and couldn’t escape. Zetsu and Sasori stared out opposite windows. 

“I can’t wait,” Kisame whispered. “I’ve dreamed about doing one of these dives for years!”

Itachi smiled. 

“You’re going to do great.”

“I’m going to  _ pet a shark!” _

“Only if you think you can do it without getting bit,” Itachi reminded him. “If you get bit doing this, Father will undoubtedly call me up the second he hears about it to launch his umpteenth attempt to get us to break up.”

Kisame smiled wide. 

“And you’ll tell him to get stuffed, but with polite words so he looks bad when he won’t let het subject drop.”

His surety that Itachi wouldn’t bend to his father’s will warmed Itachi from the inside, and he let a small smile of his own slip onto his face.

_ “In other local news, burglars attacked Mei’s Aquatics swimwear store last night. Security camera footage didn’t capture the thieves’ faces, but it did catch them making off with a very expensive cloth mermaid tail and monofin. Police are investigating, and are asking people to give them a call if they see any suspicious figures in possession of a rainbow sparkle size extra large wearable mermaid tail.” _

Itachi’s smile faded, and he glared at Deidara and Hidan in the rearview mirror.

They didn’t even have the decency to look sheepish.

* * *

The first problem reared its head as soon as they got out on the water. 

“This tail doesn’t want to cooperate,” Kisame grunted as he tugged at the mermaid tail costume. 

“What do you mean, it doesn’t want to cooperate?” Yahiko asked. “It’s not rocket science. You just stick your feet in and pull up.”

“Yeah, but it won’t pull up,” Kisame snapped. 

The fabric of the mermaid tail strained in a valiant attempt to stretch all the way around Kisame’s thighs. One side had ridden up higher than the other, causing a sort of spiral twist effect that caused the fabric to bunch up under his thighs. 

“I don’t want to tear it,” he said as he twisted like a landed fish trying to pull up the back.

“You don’t have to wear it,” Itachi started before Kisame waved him off. 

“I already went to the trouble of stuffing my feet into the monofin, at this point I might as well power through.”

He gave a particularly inspired twist-flop, which brought the fabric another few inches closer to his waist. He nearly knocked Sasori overboard in the process, and the hard monofin smacked Hidan right across the shin. 

“Ow!” Hidan shouted. “Watch where you’re flopping, Fish-man, this boat isn’t that big!”

“Sorry, Hidan,” Kisame smiled guilelessly. Itachi had to turn away and gaze out at the horizon so no one would see the smile he couldn’t keep down. As revenge went, it wasn’t perfect, but it was the thought that counted.

Eventually Kisame got the tail all the way on and shuffled over to the side of the boat, where a swim ladder had been installed. With a little help from Kakuzu and Zetsu, he got his bottom half into the water and slid down beneath the surface. 

He emerged smiling, and did a quick lap around the boat. 

“This thing actually works pretty well!” He said. “Let me know when you have the cameras all set up.”

With that he dove down under again, scouting for sharks. Itachi watched his dark shape get fainter and fainter until he couldn’t make him out against the darkness of the sea before turning to set up the underwater camera and attach his oxygen tank. 

* * *

Even inhibited by the mermaid tail, Kisame moved through the water with the kind of surreal grace that left Itachi breathless. Swim coaches and lifeguards always commented that his boyfriend was “very comfortable in the water,” but it was more than that. Every inch of him just screamed power. 

Kisame had assured them that there would be sharks here, and true to his word he had but to swim down and a bit away from the boat and the first shark appeared. 

It wasn’t distinct enough for Itachi to say with any confidence what species of shark it was, but it was as beautiful as a freshly sharpened knife. It had a blunt nose and eyes that looked faintly surprised. Its lightly curved dorsal fin twitched as it glided through the water. 

It approached warily, always moving but not always coming closer. Kisame didn’t try and swim towards them, though the tense line of his shoulders and the twitching beginnings of a grin on his face betrayed how much he wanted to. Instead, he cautiously stretched out a hand when it next swam within touching range, letting it startle away then circle back again. It startled away again when Itachi offered Kisame a puff of oxygen from the oxygen mask attached to his tank. But it didn’t startle far. 

“What’s taking so long?” Sasori’s distorted voice broke the peaceful quiet of the water. 

“He’s just doing the smart thing and taking it slow,” Itachi replied as quietly as he could. Communication was important in high-risk situations like this, but part of him was still loath to break the quiet, hypnotic quiet of the sea water. Between the distant sound of waves lapping against the side of the boat, the rush of the tide flowing in, and the other small, delicate sounds of unidentified things moving in the water, he could almost sink into a waking sleep. 

Were it not for his boyfriend’s potentially life-threatening stunt, he might have done just that. 

Sometimes the shark would start to speed up, like it was going to attack, only to slow down and swerve away less than a meter from Kisame’s gently kicking legs. 

Suddenly, a second shark appeared out of the gloom. It approached Kisame with a little less caution, coming in close as the first one moved away. It was almost like they were planets orbiting Kisame. 

Itachi couldn’t tear his eyes away from Kisame. Never before had the desire to capture a moment and frame it been so strong. 

“Hey Yahiko, can you get a shot of the other one? No, the  _ other _ other one,” Konan hissed from somewhere to Itachi’s right. “I think it’ll look cool when we edit the footage later if we can splice in footage of just the sharks.”

“Do you think there are any shark teeth lying around?” Hidan asked from his left. “I mean, these fuckers were just here, swimming around and shit, so they probably live around here, right? And aren’t sharks the ones that are always loosing teeth and growing new ones?”

“Just point the camera, Hidan,” Kakuzu grumbled. The water garbled his grumbling, making it sound even harsher than normal. 

“Jashin damn it, Kakuzu, I’m just asking! Sheesh.”

“What do you want shark teeth for anyway, Hidan?” Deidara asked.

“I wanna fucking spice up my daily prayers, of course! I bet shark teeth would be great for that- if I had a couple, I could stab just the tips into my arm, and line ‘em up like fucking triangular headstones or something!”

Itachi sighed quietly and gave up on a quiet filming.

The sharks’ uneven, oblong orbits finally drew close enough for Kisame to touch one. 

Itachi felt his breath still in his throat. This was it. The moment felt like it was balanced on a knife’s edge, but Kisame showed no sign that he felt any tension at all. His mermaid tail folded neatly under him, plastic fins brushing the sandy bottom, helping him hold still for the slowly approaching shark. 

And then all of a sudden his hand was on the shark’s snout and Itachi could feel the second-hand joy and exhilaration radiating off Kisame like it was his own. 

“Hey there,” Kisame cooed at it, breaking the silence for the first time. “You finally ready to get petted, you big puppy?”

The shark swam past him, but quickly turned around so it was back within reach again. Kisame ran his hand appreciatively from its snout to its dorsal fin. 

“Yeah, it’s okay. Aren’t you pretty? I bet you could kill us all so fast, we wouldn’t even have time to radio Nagato and tell him what was going on.”

**“That’s not a very endearing endearment,”** Zetsu muttered.  _ “But it’s okay,” _ he immediately continued in a softer voice.  _ “He’s just enthusiastic.” _

A third shark appeared, but didn’t immediately draw close. Itachi kept one eye on it, while his other eye stayed trained on where Kisame hung in the water, flanked on both sides by dangerous predators. The brightly colored cloth mermaid tail reflected what weak light managed to filter down from the surface, painting the sharks’ pale bellies with shimmering little rainbows. The delicacy of the shiny fabric was a strange counterpoint to Kisame’s tense muscles and the shark’s barely-showing teeth. 

He hoped Sasori and Deidara had a good camera angle, because this right here was  _ art. _

Then Kisame called out to him. 

“A little more air, Itachi? I’m starting to get light-headed, and I don’t think it’s just the excitement.”

Itachi’s heartbeat slammed against his waterlogged ears like a war drum. The feeling that everything balanced on a razor edge returned, so strong that he could almost feel himself bleeding on it. Slowly, muscles coiled and thrumming with barely-held-back energy, the fear and excitement of the moment turned physical forces in his body, he swam forward to offer Kisame a puff of oxygen from his tank. 

The sharks drew back as Itachi approached, skittering out from under Kisame’s broad, gentle hands like startled cats. 

Kisame’s eyes lifted from their retreating fins more slowly, coming to rest heavily on Itachi’s mask-covered face. They were filled with the kind of joy and contentment that made Itachi want to shiver himself out of his own skin and curl up in Kisame’s lap, naked and exposed. 

“I love you,” Itachi whispered as he pulled his oxygen tank’s mouthpiece from between his lips. 

His whisper was too soft for even him to hear. The water barricaded the words in in his mouth, suffocating them like a thick comforter. In the watery light, he couldn’t even be sure that Kisame could read the familiar shape of the words on his newly-exposed lips. Desire snatched at Itachi’s heart, fierce as a wild animal. Kisame  _ had  _ to know. In this moment, with sharks circling and the soft strangulation of the sea distorting their voices, he  _ needed _ Kisame to hear him. 

Their eyes locked, and Itachi pulled the mouthpiece back towards himself. As delicate as freshly-blooming rose petals and without so much as blinking the salty water out of his eyes, he pressed a kiss to the plastic, then offered it to Kisame. 

Kisame’s grin was big and full of teeth as he pressed it to his own mouth and inhaled. 

“The sharks can hear our heartbeats, Itachi,” he said between quick puffs. “How fast do they sound, do you think? Fast enough to be prey?”

_ So fast I’m surprised the water isn’t blooming red, _ Itachi thought. Wordlessly, he grabbed the hand that had just moments ago been stroking over sharkskin and pressed it over his heart. 

“Mmm,” Kisame hummed. “Yeah, I bet they could hear that for miles. Wish I could too.”

Then he handed back the oxygen mouthpiece, and Itachi made himself swim back away. 

“Man, Itachi, nice job keeping your cool back there,” Yahiko said as he rejoined the others a few meters away. “I would have freaked out for sure.”

He looked at his friend questioningly. 

“That third shark came pretty close to you guys. I’m kinda surprised Kisame didn’t reach around you to boop its nose. If that had been me, I’d have been swimming away just as fast as I could, but you didn’t even act like you noticed.”

_ Oh shit, _ Itachi thought. He definitely  _ hadn’t _ noticed. 

He shrugged at Yahiko and hoped he read some sort of appropriate response into that, then turned his attention back to Kisame. 

Kisame had rise from his folded crouch, and was now swimming alongside the sharks, mermaid tail extended gracefully behind him. It had looked kind of stupid and definitely tacky as hell back on land, but underwater the pull of fabric over taut muscle looked imposing rather than ill-fitting, and the glitter almost seemed natural. 

And then Hidan started screaming. 

“Jashin damn it, that fucking stings! Oh fuck, I completely forgot we were in salt water, holy shit. Oh god, that’s hurts. Why didn’t I think of this before? Salt in the wound! That’s exactly the thing I need to - hey, Kakuzu, Deidara! Think you can help me steal some salt from our shitty cafeteria? Oh Jashin that’s painful.”

All eyes were on Hidan’s leg. The torn shreds of his scuba suit framed the perfect crescent of deep teeth marks, angry red against his pale flesh.

“Time to go,” Kisame yelled, and the water roiled around them as they all began kicking wildly towards the surface as fast as they could. 

The sharks’ motions grew distinctly more predatory. Laziness suddenly turned to sinister speed. The boat was close, nearly on top of them, but the sharks were faster. A second one came at Hidan in a flash, teeth bared. He kicked it awkwardly in the nose, plastic flippers stealing any grace the movement might have had. It worked, though, turning the shark away at the last moment. Almost immediately the second shark was on him. 

Up above, Sasori and Zetsu disappeared into the boat, with Deidara and Kakuzu hot on their heels. Konan was a little slower, letting Kisame pull her up towards the swim ladder then diving back down for Yahiko. Itachi’s own fingers closed on the other side of the boat just as Hidan bent over to punch the shark in the gills. Then he out of the water, pulling himself up and over the opposite side of the boat in order to avoid the crowded swim ladder. 

Nagato grabbed his elbow and helped pull him the last couple of inches over the lip. He toppled to the hard floor, just managing to break his fall with his hands instead of his head. 

Each gasping breath felt like fire burning down Itachi’s throat. He frantically wiped wet hair from his eyes and started doing a headcount. Him, Yahiko, Sasori, Zetsu, Kakuzu, Deidara, Konan, Nagato had never gotten in the water- that just left Hidan and Kisame. 

He lurched to the side of the boat and stared into the water. It was difficult to see- there was a lot of movement, but beyond that his eyes couldn’t make out anything useful. 

Then Kisame erupted out of the water like a leaping dolphin, Hidan in tow. Itachi hastily thrust out his hand to help pull the two of them up the swim ladder, and nearly knocked himself out on the steering bench when Kisame collapsed off the ladder and pinned him to the boat floor while Hidan rolled away, still alternately swearing in pain and praising Jashin. Wet fabric rubbed against his skin- right, he’d forgotten about the mermaid tail. Kisame wouldn’t be able to stand up until they’d wrestled him out of it. 

Above them, Sasori pulled up the swim ladder and Nagato started up the engine. 

“What did you do, Hidan?” Kakuzu demanded. He pulled out the first aid box and started rifling through it for the bandages and something to disinfect the wounds with. 

“I thought things were getting a little too fucking chummy back there. I only came out here because Itachi said there would be sharks, like in  _ Jaws _ . I couldn’t disappoint Jashin by letting a fucking  _ filmed encounter _ with a  _ deadly pack of sharks _ end without any action! So I kicked one of them right in the teeth!”

Kakuzu stopped sorting through the medical supplies to glare bloody murder at Hidan. 

“You  _ what.” _

“I kicked it right in the fucking teeth!” Hidan repeated. “I aimed for the back ones too, so when it bit it’d leave nice, visible cuts right in the middle, not any of this ‘nicked the side’ bullshit.”

“You got bit  _ on purpose?” _ Deidara said. “You could have gotten the rest of us killed!”

“You mean to tell me,” Kakuzu growled, “That all of this was some stunt for your phony-baloney god?”

Hidan nodded, beaming with pride. 

“I should let you bleed out and collect your life insurance,” Kakuzu said. 

“Well joke’s on you, because I’m not even bleeding!”

Ten pairs of eyes flicked down to Hidan’s injured leg. Unbelievably, not a single drop of blood flowed from the teeth marks. 

“I forgot I’d said the blood prayers this morning, so Jashin won’t let me bleed until sundown,” Hidan shrugged. “And how dare you question Jashin, Kakuzu? Look, one of his fucking miracles is right in front of your heathen ass!”

“Should we take him to the hospital?” Nagato asked. 

“What for?” Kakuzu spat. “He’s not bleeding.”

“You okay?” Kisame asked as an argument over whether or not Hidan was actually injured broke out. 

“A little rattled, but fine,” Itachi said. “As soon as the adrenaline runs out, I’ll probably drop like a stone.”

“In that case, may I offer by shoulder as a pillow?”

Itachi pressed his face into Kisame’s wet hair and smiled. 

“I’d love that.”


End file.
